The Case of the Lost Coins
The Case of the Lost Coins is the first short story in the eighth anthology of Biggles Air Police short stories entitled Biggles Flies to Work. The anthology was first published in September, 1963. In the anthology, this story is followed by The Case of the Old Masters. Synopsis This is another "retrieval story" where Biggles is sent to retrieve something much like in The Case of the Mandarin's Treasure Chest. Rather implausibly, the British authorities sanction Biggles to fly to Albania and retrieve a valuable collection of coins which the owner has presented to the British Museum. Plot (may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) A Greek numismatist had been forced to flee his home in Albania. Unable to recover his precious collection of rare coins, he has donated it to the British Museum if it can recover it. To Air Commodore Raymond, this seems a straight-forward enough operation. The coins lay in a box which had been buried in the garden. The house stood on a low promontery by the coast of the Adriatic, easily approached by marine aircraft. Biggles, Ginger and Bertie set off in the Gadfly. The ingress is done smoothly and the aircraft puts down near the target. Bertie stays with the plane while Biggles and Ginger paddle ashore in a dinghy. There things begin to go wrong. The house appears inhabited. The garden is overgrown, making it difficult to take measurements to find the precise spot to dig. Worse, there are armed guards on the prowl. The house has been turned into some kind of military outpost! Still, evading the patrols, Biggles and Ginger locate the spot and after some digging, unearth the box. Now the bottom drops out of the box, spilling the coins all over the hole. Unwilling to give up, Biggles removes his jacket, ties the ends of the sleeves and shoves the coins into the two improvised containers. The tedious task completed, Biggles and Ginger make their escape but a guard dog gives them away and the alarm is raised. The sentries open fire but Bertie has taxied the aircraft close in to shore. Biggles and Ginger are able the clamber on board quickly with their precious load, after which the Gadfly makes a smooth egress without further interference. Characters The Special Air Police/Scotland Yard *Air Commodore Raymond *Biggles *Algy Lacey *Ginger Hebblethwaite *Bertie Lissie Others *Constatine Peligrinos Aircraft *Gadfly Places Visited *London, Scotland Yard - Raymond's office, Biggles' office *Delvaros - on the Albanian coast of the Adriatic Sea Mentioned Research Notes *Algy was on leave in this story and did not appear. References to the past Incongruities *Johns mentions that with a range of more than 2,000 miles, the Gadfly could fly from Britain to Albania and return without an intermediate stop. In actual fact, the distance from London to any point on the Albanian coast is roughly 1,100 miles or more. Biggles, as an experienced aviator would have wanted an adequate reserve. The range of the Gadfly would not have been enough unless the "more than" refers to a very large number. Biggles would have been better off refueling at Malta--he had done that before in Biggles' Combined Operation. Chronology Category:Biggles short stories Category:Short stories Category:Retrieval stories Category:Air Police era short stories Category:Treasure hunt stories